Contextual effects of community mobilization and communication capacity as a positive factor for self-rated health status: A multi-level analysis

Objectives: We examined relationships between individual-level community participation, two types of contextual effects - community capacity for mobilization and capacity for health communication - and residents' self-reported health status in order to explore the role health communication may play in community building for health. Methods: To estimate multi-level effects of the community participation and the two contextual indicators with self-rated health status, we applied hierarchical generalized linear regression to crosssectional data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Results: After adjusting for individual- and community-level confounders, the likelihood of having high self-rated health status is significantly higher among those who live in a region with higher community capacity for mobilization, higher health communication capacity at the community level, and higher participation in community groups at the individual-level. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that living in a community characterized by higher levels of communication and mobilization capacity is beneficial to residents' self-rated health status - increasing the odds of high health status by up to 9 %. Thus, building community capacity in mobilization and health communication may help develop better health promotion campaigns.